April 2013

Happy birthday to Blake Carver, our fearless leader!! Please join me in wishing him all the best.
smiling Blake
pensive Blake

Since Kickstarter launched in 2009, everyone from indie bands to technology developers to non-profit organizations has asked themselves, “Will crowdfunding work for me?” Libraries, which often turn to more civic-minded crowdfunding sites like Indiegogo and Fundly, are no exception. But the question remains: does it work?

Cassandra Elton got the idea to establish the Antelope Lending Library in a well-traversed mall on the Southeast side of Iowa City while she was working at an after-school program in a local elementary school. Elton found that her students—primarily from low-income and immigrant families—did not have access to the literary culture for which the city is known.

Full article

Duck Duck Go is a small search engine based in Pennsylvania that is, according to Google at least, a Google competitor. OTM producer Chris Neary talks with Duck Duck Go founder Gabriel Weinberg, SearchEngineLand’s Danny Sullivan, and a dedicated Duck Duck Go user about the site. Also, each of the OTM producers try Duck Duck Go, and only Duck Duck Go, for a week.

Full piece:On The Media

In 2012, Martin Richard, the 8-year-old Dorchester boy who was killed in the marathon explosions, marched at Boston’s City Hall to call for peace.

Richard’s second-grade class was there to “express themselves in a positive manner and become more engaged in the politics of the city,” according to a Boston.com story about the march.

The school says it is grieving for Martin and his family. It released his statement and identified Martin’s mother, another victim of the bombing, as a school librarian:

The Neighborhood House Charter School is mourning today the loss of our beloved student Martin Richard, during the tragic events at the Boston Marathon yesterday. He was a bright, energetic young boy who had big dreams and high hopes for his future. We are heartbroken by this loss.

We are also praying for his mother, Denise, our school librarian and sister Jane, another Neighborhood House Charter student, who were seriously injured yesterday. Our thoughts are with his father, Bill Richard, and older brother, Henry. They are a wonderful family and represent the very best this city has to offer.

Book censorship is being contrasted to gun regulation.

Picture and additional post at Teleread

Explosion at the Boston Marathon
Story here

There was also an expolsion at JFK Library

A third event just after 3 this afternoon at John F. Kennedy library is now being called either a fire or “an incendiary” device and it is too soon to say if it is tied to the explosions at the finish of the Marathon.

Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis said earlier today “a third incident — explosion — was at the JFK Library” on Columbia Point. But he said that information could be “premature.”

Full article

UPDATE: Fire at JFK library likely unrelated

In book news, a recent report shows that book publishers received nearly 23% of their revenues from sales of ebooks (versus paper books) during 2012. That’s up from 17% the year before. That comes from full-year data by the Association of American Publishers (AAP). The AAP includes 350 publishers, including large ones such as Simon & Schuster, Hachette and Harper Collins, as well as independents like Sourcebooks.

Is the beloved paper dictionary doomed to extinction? In this infectiously exuberant talk, leading lexicographer Erin McKean looks at the many ways today’s print dictionary is poised for transformation.

Interesting line in talk: Paper is the enemy of words

Uuuh, nope!:
In conclusion, there is a massive market failure going on right now. Magazines have outlived newspapers, based in-part on their affiliation with women. Not only that, but women have brought novels back into the popular consciousness, with young women leading the way.

With some small exceptions, the major new media ventures of the last decade have bypassed women altogether, and it is a regrettable mistake. It’s a big reason why — for all the success of Bleacher Report, Vox Media, Gawker, and HuffingtonPost — nobody seriously talked about IPOs.